I was around before these coffee shops businesses got popular and yeah, food was better.

Then your memory sucks. Good, diversified food choices have only become increasingly available with economic growth. Even if the things at Starbucks are terrible, they are still terrible versions of things that weren't even available before to the great expanse of society. Before Starbucks, where could the average American go to get a latte? Or a chai iced tea? Before Whole Foods, how many Americans even knew what a kumquat was? Seemingly every small town in the United States has at least one sushi restaurant today. You may sneer at the sh*tty California rolls (not that you would ever order those), but there was no sushi there before, at all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fuuma

Not that this matter as you think the only two way to have a society is gun to the head or capitalism. I am not even asking you to dislike the system we have in place, but to awknowledge the fact that it's underlying values (progress!!, optimization! $$$!) lead to the average restaurant serving unbelievably shitty food (and yeah pricey bio-chicken for bobo distinction).

If we are defining capitalism as a system where people make their own decisions about what to buy and sell, then yes, the only other choice is to make them do otherwise by putting a gun to their heads. If you are simply more enlightened than me and can suggest another path, please feel free to share.

I think there's a component of egalitarianism in this too. Sbx and McD's are the epitome of egalitarianism whereas street food or fine dining reflect differentiation in class or SES.

I like fried chicken, you're the food snob, not me! There is a huge divide between greasy pizza and a fucking microwaved strudel filled with tuna paste!

Hey, I love good fried chicken and cheap Mexican food. That's not the point though. Everyone got into some deconstruction here and I offered my 2 cents. We have food only pretentious fucks eat now, food only teh poorz eat (or higher ups slumming) and then mass produced food which is acceptable to the masses. Some sort of twisted notion of egalitarianism I think.

And more importantly, if bad taste did not exist, would it be necessary to invent it?

Well, this is the most maddening aspect of narratives like Fuuma's. The premise is that corporations brainwash people into buying crap from them.

Possible, yes--though outlandish, and more importantly, pointless to consider. I might as well assume that Fuuma's opinions should be entirely ignored because he's been brainwashed by the Western institution of leftist academic ideology.

Another thing to consider is that as large entities increase in scale, they often cut quality to deal with the challenge of size. exempli gratia, Canadian donut franchise Tim Hortons experienced huge growth over the last 20 years, and at some point they stopped making donuts in store and had them shipped in frozen from centralized bakeries. This may be a reflect of Fuuma's critical views on optimization - companies that rely heavily on brand loyalty or marketing to overcome a decline in product quality or experience.

Sometimes the consistency or operating hours of franchises are appreciated, but growth for the sake of growth seems to eventually have negative effects on the end consumer.